When income is measured in billions

It's not easy to become a billionaire ??? making a billion dollars over the course of just one lifetime. On the other hand, if you're a hedge-fund manager, it seems that making a billion dollars over the course of just one year is entirely doable. Indeed, according to Trader Monthly, Centaurus Energy's John Arnold made as much as $2 billion last year.

My favorite part of the Trader Monthly listings is that they bucket income in increments of half a billion dollars: Arnold made between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, as did James Simons, while Eddie Lampert, Boone Pickens, and Steven Cohen all made between $1 billion and $1.5 billion.

Arnold is still only 33 years old, and in the space of one year he has become dynastically wealthy to the point where he couldn't spend all his money if he tried. So what's he going to do for the rest of his life? The depressing but most likely answer is that he's going to try to make even more money. Which is one reason why John Arnold made $2 billion last year, and you didn't.